Obsolete

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh) Limited
7 Albany Street
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH13UG

BY POST AND FAX: XXXX XXX XXXX
OurRef: SMS/JXR/ww/A131/3
ON THE RECORD
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
08 July 2008

Dear Sirs

The Road to Samarkand - Craig Murray

We represent Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer OBE, C.E.O. of Aegis Defence Services Limited (”Aegis”).

We are instructed to write to you with regard to ‘THE ROAD TO SAMARKAND- INTRIGUE, CORRUPTION AND DIRTY DIPLOMACY’ (”the Book”) written by Craig Murray and due to be published in September 2008 by you (http://www.rbooks.co.uk/search results.aspx) to be sold in England and Wales by Random House Sales Department.

We have reason to believe that the Book may contain serious, untrue and damaging defamatory allegations about our client.

Please confirm by return whether the Book is due to be published in England and Wales in September 2008 and if so, the exact date. Please also confirm whether the Book is due to be published in any other jurisdiction, setting out each jurisdiction, together with the publication date and publisher concerned in each case.

Importantly, we require you to confirm by return whether or not the Book contains any reference to our client, and if so, we require you to set out in full each and every reference to our client in its entirety to give our client the opportunity to take legal advice and to respond to any allegations in good time prior to publication.

Any widespread publication of the Book containing defamatory allegations concerning our client would be deeply damaging to our client’s personal and professional reputations and would cause him profound distress and anxiety. We remind you that you would be responsible for that damage and any subsequent republication of the allegations. We also put you on notice that you will be liable for any special damage or loss suffered by our client as a result of the Book and we reserve all our client’s rights in this regard.

We note from your website http://www.mainstreampublishing.com/news_current.html that Mr Murray is due to speak about the Book at a ‘Mainstream author event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival’ entitled ‘Lived Lives’ on 12th August 2008 at 4.30pm in the RBS Main Theatre, Edinburgh. We hereby put both you and Mr Murray on notice that all our client’s rights are reserved in relation to any defamatory comments or publications made by you or Mr Murray in relation to that event.

Please immediately take into your possession all drafts of the Book pre-publication, all notes, emails, correspondence, memos, images and other documents relevant to the publication of this Book, and preserve them safely pending the outcome of this dispute. They will need to be disclosed in due course if litigation has to be commenced. Also, you will need to disclose the financial arrangements for the sale and licence of the Book to other publications.

In the circumstances, we require that you confirm immediately that you agree to undertake on behalf of Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh) Limited not to publish any libels regarding our client in any editions of the Book or at all.

We require the above undertaking by 4pm on Friday 11h July 2008, failing which we will have no option but to advise our client with regard to making applications to the High Court for an injunction to restrain publication and/or for pre-action disclosure. You are on notice that we will seek to recover the costs of any necessary applications from you.

We await your response by return. In the meantime all our client’s rights are reserved, including the right to issue proceedings against you without further notice.
Yours faithfully

SCHILLINGS
cc. Craig Murray Esq.

Schillings are a firm of libel lawyers dedicated to prevent the truth from being known about some deeply unlovely people. They managed temporarily to close down this blog (and several others) to keep information quiet about the criminal record of Alisher Usmanov. Now they are attempting to block the publication of my new book in the interests of mercenary commander Tim Spicer, one of those who has made a fortune from the Iraq War. It is sad but perhaps predictable that private profits from the illegal Iraq war, in which hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died, are providing the funding to try to silence my book.

Libel law in the UK is a remarkable thing - Schillings can go for an injunction when I haven't published anything about Spicer yet and they haven't seen what I intend to publish. People might conclude that Spicer has something to hide. You will see that they also are attempting to censor not only the book, but what I say at the Edinburgh Book Festival on 12 August. I can assure you that they will find it impossible to affect what I say about Spicer at that event.

Labels: Aegis, bloggocks, Craig Murray, legal threats, Schillings, seen elsewhere, Tim Spicer

Labels: 42 days, civil liberties, David Davis, death of Labour, end of Labour, Haltemprice by-election, no compromise on 42 days

I told him the little scrotes on the street would just laugh at him unless he could back it up with force.

He got upset, not at my allegation but at my use of the word “scrotes”.

He said it was inappropriate language to use against young people.

This political correctness would have made even Lambeth council blush with anger and demonstrates everything that is wrong with our police service.

Labels: insults, Jon Gaunt, political correctness gone mad bullshit, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

Labels: "public interest", abuses by tabloids, libel, Mahzer Mahmood, Max Mosley, News of the Screws, News of the World, privacy, privacy law

These are not just so-called injuries, these are the Sun's so-called injuries.

COMMON sense prevailed when two British soldiers were cleared of abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Major Michael Peebles and Warrant Officer Mark Davies served with courage and bravery in the most difficult conditions.

This ludicrous show trial — which has already seen four other soldiers cleared on the judge’s orders — has been a waste of time and money.

These men risked their lives in Iraq but were repaid by being hung out to dry.

Every aspect of investigating so-called crimes within the military needs to be re-examined. Our servicemen and women deserve nothing less.

[Our Boys needed to be able to work] “without looking over their shoulders inhibited by the fear of such actions by over-zealous and remote officialdom”.

Labels: Baha Mousa, British army abuse, compensation, Iraq, Iraq disaster, Ministry of Defence, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

Labels: Abu Qutada, Daily Mail-watch, Mail-watch, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, tabloid junk

Labels: Dr Death

THESE chilling pictures of teenagers brandishing guns and knives were found in just ONE DAY on the Bebo website.

The users’ homepages glamorise gang violence — despite 19 young people dying in vicious attacks in London this year.

Labels: Abbie Hawkins, bullshit, churnalism, hacks, knife crime, Scum-watch, social networking websites, Sun-watch, tabloid stupidity

The farce is strong in this one.

"We as a society have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people's feelings, in order to avoid appearing judgemental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. We have seen a decades-long erosion of responsibility, of social virtue, of self-discipline, respect for others, deferring gratification instead of instant gratification.

"We talk about people being "at risk of obesity" instead of talking about people who eat too much and take too little exercise. We talk about people being at risk of poverty, or social exclusion: it's as if these things - obesity, alcohol abuse, drug addiction - are purely external events like a plague or bad weather. "Of course, circumstances - where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make - have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make.

Labels: broken society bullshit, Conservatives, David Cameron, equality of opportunity, parallel universe, social mobility

This time, he [Peter Oborne] is making the argument that the British media is anti-Muslim.

He cites invented incidents which portray Muslims in a bad light and incite attacks fuelled by religious or race hatred.

...

The accusation that the media — with a few badly researched or unchecked stories — is fomenting race hatred is in itself a trivialisation.

Hmmm. Well, what about my criticism of Muslim immigrants for their self-imposed isolation and reluctance to integrate? Wasn’t the same true for some Orthodox Jewish communities?

Maybe, I replied. But Jews — who are themselves increasingly the target for hate attacks — are not trying to bomb Britain.

In the past, I have also questioned the “provocative” trend by British-born Muslims to start wearing tribal costume and the hijab.

And I touched on the appalling fact that many women are treated as chattels.

All this, Peter Oborne concluded, amounted to “Islamophobia”.

Is he right? Does severe criticism of a creed or its teachings justify the accusation of hate?

Or is that just a way of shutting down the debate, just as critics of the EU are branded Europhobes?

In the wake of 9/11, the Muslim head of Al Arabiya TV, Abdul Rahman al Rashed, said: “Not all Muslims are terrorists but, with deep regret, we must admit that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”

Is he an Islamophobe?

Try watching Syrian-born Dr Wafa Sultan on YouTube as she challenges a furious cleric to name a single Jew or Buddhist suicide bomber.

“Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by killing people, burning churches and bombing embassies,” she storms.

Is she Islamophobic? Or simply spelling out the facts?

Muslim men are entitled to beat their wives and take more than one wife. Women are automatically suspect, banned in some communities from showing their faces or limbs because they are sexually tempting — to men. Visit an Arab country, or watch TV shows about them, and you will see plenty of men and boys.

Women appear rarely and, when they do, are covered head to toe. The rest are under virtual house arrest, living behind closed doors in ignorance and isolation.

We cannot interfere in the way other countries order their societies.

But such barbaric treatment of women has been imported and thrives here.

Forced marriages are common. Honour killings and beatings are far from rare. Women are refused education or a chance to learn English.

I receive emails from women Muslims crying out for help. One, Gina Khan, has written eloquently in The Sun about oppression of women in a male-dominated society through arranged marriages, polygamy and the veil. Is she Islamophobic too?

Or is she a lonely voice on behalf of millions of women who are being ignored and gagged by a politically correct establishment which is too timid to face the truth?

THE family of evil 7/7 bomber Shehzad Tanweer held a party at the fanatic’s grave – on the third anniversary of the London terrorist outrage today.

The sick celebration has been branded an “insult” to July 7 victims and their relatives.

I doubt it. Infidels don't count so why would they be remotely upset about the terrorist attack? Loyalty is to Allah, and it is unfortunate for them that a Muslim had to die in committing his heinous act. Tanweer was brought up in the UK with this education, and it is why there are plenty more Tanweers about. It is a mistake to ascribe Western moral values to the way of thinking that creates Tanweers and his ilk. Political correctness now prohibits thoughts that people are actually different in their views.

Most Muslims proclaim horror at all of these types of attrocity but they do sweet FA about it - time to get off your butts and get your houses in order & stop playing the percecuted victims.

if u know where the party is held why don't u just bomb them back

Who are these sick people? The UK has become a haven for scumbags like this, if anyone protests they will say that they are being discriminated against, stupid laws that help them and let this country head for the gutter.

surely it is time for the socalled good muslims to tart to condemn these fanatics. if they do not then they are all as bad theres no wonder that there is racial tension. I read today that a group in england had sent the brother of one of these bombers to pakistan so that relations could be better. I wonder if he went to this so called party - if so he should bebanned from returning here and if he has returned he should have his passport taken away as well as his benefits.

We think we should all feel a little bit ashamed about the way we treat Muslims in the media, in our politics, and on our streets. They are our fellow citizens, yet often we barely acknowledge them. We misrepresent them and in certain cases we persecute them. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we so often like to boast is the British way. We urgently need to change our public culture.

Labels: British Muslims, Dispatches, It Shouldn't Happen to a Muslim, Muslim bashing, Muslims under Siege, Peter Oborne, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, Trevor Kavangah